page_title: The Seinfeld Chronicles
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: The Seinfeld Chronicles / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Brandon Tartikoff at the 40th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards
context_page_description: "The Seinfeld Chronicles" is the pilot episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld, which first aired on NBC on July 5, 1989.
  The first of the 180 Seinfeld episodes, the pilot was written by show creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, and directed by Art Wolff. The episode revolves around a fictionalized version of Seinfeld, who is unsure about the romantic intentions of a woman he met, and frets about the meaning of her signals with his best friend George and neighbor Kessler.
  Though they had been asked to put together a 90-minute TV special, Seinfeld and David wrote a TV pilot as they felt their "show about nothing" concept would fit better in the shorter, more conventional half-hour format. The storyline, and the main characters, were inspired by real-life events and people. Though the NBC executives were unsure about the show, they, as Warren Littlefield would later state, "all said, ah what the hell, let's try a pilot on this thing and see what happens". The test audiences, however, reacted extremely negatively.
context_section_description: The pilot was first screened by a group of two dozen NBC executives in Burbank, California in early 1989. Although the pilot did not yield the explosion of laughter garnered by the pilots for the decade's previous NBC successes like The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls, it drew mostly positive responses from the assembled executives. One exception was Brandon Tartikoff, who was concerned that the show was "Too New York, too Jewish". Before the episode's TV premiere it was shown to a test audience of 400 households, and met with extremely negative responses. Littlefield would later recall "In the history of pilot reports, Seinfeld has got to be one of the worst of all time". The memo that summarized the test audience's reaction, contained feedback such as "No segment of the audience was eager to watch the show again" and "None of the [supporting characters] were particularly liked". Despite the low rating the show received from its test audience, the first public broadcast of "The Seinfeld Chronicles" took place on the fifth of July 1989, to see how viewers would react, even though the executives had already decided the show would not be picked up for a full season. "The Seinfeld Chronicles" finished second in its time slot, behind the CBS police drama Jake and the Fatman, receiving a Nielsen rating of 10.9/19, meaning that the pilot was watched by 10.9% of American households, and that 19% of all televisions in use at the time were tuned into it. With these ratings "The Seinfeld Chronicles" finished in the 21st place of the week it was broadcast, tied with Fox's Totally Hidden Video.
  Unlike the test audience, television critics generally reacted positively to the pilot, viewing it as original and innovative, USA Today critic Tom Green summarized the show as a "crisply funny blend of stand-up routines interwoven with more traditional sitcom stuff". Eric Mink of St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote he thought the show was unusual and intriguing, yet "quite funny". Joe Stein of the San Diego Evening Tribune commented "Not all standup comedians fit into a sitcom format, but Seinfeld does". A more negative response came from a The Fresno Bee critic, that stated "I liked the concept, but Seinfeld's jokes were so dull that you hoped the standup stuff would fly by so you could get back to the story". Though the critic praised Alexander's acting he commented that his performance was not enough to keep the show "from being just another piece of summer drivel offered up by a major commercial network".
  Various critics compared the pilot to It's Garry Shandling's Show. In his review of the episode The Philadelphia Inquirer critic Ken Tucker commented "Seinfeld's brisk funniness prevents Chronicles from being a rip-off", while Jerry Krupnick of The Star-Ledger felt that The Seinfeld Chronicles differentiated itself from It's Garry Shandling's Show by its supporting cast, which he praised. By contrast, John Voorhees of The Seattle Times commented that, though he thought the show was amusing, he considered It's Garry Shandling's Show to be better, and the Houston Chronicle's Mike McDaniel referred to the pilot as "a not-as-good Garry Shandling-like show".
  Most critics reacted with disappointment to the fact that NBC had not picked up the show. Bob Niedt of the Syracuse Herald-Journal commented "What gives? Comedy this good, and NBC is keeping — excuse me — A Different World on the schedule?". Ken Tucker stated "NBC is making a mistake if it doesn't pick up The Seinfeld Chronicles as a midseason replacement; it's bound to be superior to most of what the network has planned for the fall". Additionally casting directors Hirschfeld and Meg Liberman were nominated for a Casting Society of America Artios Award for 'Best Casting for TV, Pilot', but lost to the casting directors of Northern Exposure.
  Though the network executives had decided not to pick up The Seinfeld Chronicles for a first season, some of them  were reluctant to give up on it, as they felt the series had potential. Rick Ludwin, one of the show's greatest supporters, eventually made a
caption: NBC executive Brandon Tartikoff was concerned the show was "Too New York, too Jewish".
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